Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines intellectual curiosity as the driving force in scholarly endeavor on the borderlands of geography, history, anthropology, and other disciplines. The premise is that curiosity is a salient trait of certain people past and present and that each field has its exemplars in this regard. For Carl O. Sauer (1889-1975), America's leading geographer of the twentieth century, and his intellectual descendants, the inquisitive spirit stood high on the list of indispensable scholarly attributes. Their curiosity-driven studies converging space, time, ecology, and culture involved a fluid and unpredictable process of intellectual discovery. This book, combining the empirical with the philosophical and reflexive, describes how the power of intrinsic motivation and the thread of a romantic consciousness blend with the joy of polymathic exploration.
Trade Review«An insightful tour de force by one of the most traveled and cosmopolitan scholars in cultural and historical geography.» (Stanley D. Brunn, University of Kentucky)
«‘Rara libris!’ Providing abundant and compelling examples drawn from his own work and others’, a master cultural geographer explores curiosity as the mainspring of inspired scholarship. Provocative, perceptive, and highly original.» (Kent Mathewson, Louisiana State University)
